Friendly Fire
by pickamix
Summary: <html><head></head>The Scoobies overreact at Willow's life choice.</html>


Willow couldn't believe she was locked in Giles's bathroom and had been for the better part of the night. About an hour ago, Buffy had brought her food: milk, PB and J with the crusts cut off, and some apple slices like she was three. She was still hungry.

She had tried to magic her way out of the bathroom without any success, and she couldn't even bust the glass out of the window. It was that frosted, thick block glass that she knew better than to even try to break. She was also bored to tears waiting for Buffy and Giles and the rest of them to let her go.

Contrary to their belief, she wasn't under the effects of some spell and she wasn't crazy. She was, however, in the float-on-a-cloud, everything about the other person was wonderful, beginning part of being in love.

What had started out as a drunken one-night stand because she was brokenhearted about Oz had turned into an unexpected relationship, though they had been both keeping it quiet because they liked him not being dust and he was fairly helpless.

But they had gotten caught, and her friends just couldn't believe that their Willow was dating Spike.

The intervention hadn't gone well, hence being locked in a bathroom.

She'd tried listing off all of Spike's good qualities, but her friends had just come back at her with evil, killer, and violent, all of which she logically knew. But Spike was also honest with her, sweet, romantic, smart, driven, forthright, and an amazing lover, not that she would tell her friends the last part.

The only good news was that she had gotten them to hold off on doing a general reversal spell on her, much to her relief.

Feeling completely depressed and out of sorts, she sat down on the closed lid of the toilet and thought back on how the relationship part of her thing with Spike had started. They had already had sex. It was when it had turned into something else that she was thinking about.

Willow was on her way home from Giles's place and she ran into Spike, literally rammed right into him when she turned a corner downtown. It was almost exactly how they'd met up last time, only this time she wasn't on her way to get drunk because the idea of drinking sounded better than feeling broken over Oz leaving her. This time she was headed toward UC Sunnydale and her dorm.

"Red," he greeted. "You're making it a habit of trying to mow me over."

"Sorry, blind corner." She felt very awkward. She had slept with him – now what was she supposed to say to him? It would be rude to not say anything and just walk off. "So how have you been?"

"Dangerous question, but since you don't actually mean it, I'll say fine," he replied.

"I mean it," Willow assured immediately. "I wouldn't blow you off like that."

He raised an eyebrow at her, sizing her up. "I'm a social leper in the demon community and the best I can hope for is a little extra violence helping you lot out from time to time. How do you think I'm doing?"

"Sorry. I wish it were better for you." She motioned in the direction she was heading. "I'm going this way if you want to talk."

"If I'm not mistaken, the slayer is that direction as well, and I'm not in the mood to verbally spar with her tonight." For the first time, Willow noticed that Spike had a bottle in his hand that was wrapped in a paper bag.

"Then I'll follow you." She didn't know what had possessed her to do that exactly. All she knew was that when she'd been feeling particularly low, Spike had been there for her. It seemed rude not to do the same for him.

He looked surprised. "Okay."

They walked down the street together for about two blocks before either of them spoke again. And because Willow was feeling especially tongue-tied, it was Spike that broke the silence. "When you spend over a hundred years being a certain thing, it isn't that easy to adjust to being something else, you know."

"I can only imagine," Willow said.

And that started another night of drinking, but this time the theme was Spike's pain instead of Willow's, and they spent the night at his crypt. It was a good thing the following day was Sunday, and therefore she didn't have any classes, because she ended up sleeping really late.

She wasn't sure if that had been the start of the relationship, but once is a one night stand – twice, however... she didn't know what to call twice. When it had happened a third time, she hadn't been the only one to see that it was becoming a pattern. The third time they had spent all night walking around and had spent the day in a warehouse, waiting out the sun.

Spike gallantly took the more uncomfortable of sleeping places and let Willow have the couch that they found in the old office. He was sitting next to her while she lay there sleepily. He idly played with her hair.

"This is sort of becoming a thing with us," he said softly.

Her stomach got butterflies like it used to when she was in the early stages of her relationship with Oz. "I noticed that too."

At least this night hadn't been about any deep pain. It had been mostly just companionship. Things with the gang weren't like they had been in the past. She found herself lonely more often than not. And that part of herself recognized the same feeling in Spike.

"Should we make something out of it?" he asked, his hand traveling from her hair to her cheek.

"Do you want to?" she asked, feeling like an inadequate dork.

He kissed her forehead first and she was sure that he was going to let her down gently, but then he kissed her lips so softly and sweetly that she almost cried.

Sitting in Giles's bathroom, Willow decided that that kiss had been the actual beginning of the relationship. After that, it had been a game of keeping the relationship from her friends. Slowly Spike had started helping out more and more and asking for less and less in return. She'd known it was for her, but everyone else had been clueless. But him being around more had caused problems for them a little. One time Xander had noticed Spike staring at Willow while somehow missing the fact that she was staring back and had accused him of looking at her like a meal. And one time while patrolling, she'd been teamed up with Spike and they had been holding hands and had almost been caught by Buffy. And Buffy had been noticing that Willow wasn't in the dorm as much these days, and that had caused questions.

"So spill Wills," Buffy said one afternoon when they were getting back to the dorm at about the same time. "Who's the guy?"

Trying to act innocent, she shook her head. "No guy, just some extremely hard classes and a lot of extra study time."

"That's what you were wearing yesterday," Buffy pointed out.

"I slept over at Erica's unexpectedly and didn't have a change of clothes." She had had this lie ready for a while now, but this was the first time she'd had to use it. "We were studying and then it was really late and..."

"I get it." Buffy dropped her bag on her bed. "You seem to be doing this a lot, though. Maybe you should start taking an overnight bag with you."

"That's a good idea," Willow said, opening her closet and looking for something clean to wear and very relieved that her lie had worked.

Willow was starting to wonder if they were ever going to let her out of the bathroom. How much talking about her love life did they really need to do? It was her love life... not theirs. They had no right to say anything about it.

* * *

><p>Spike hated leaving Willow like he had, but he knew that her captors weren't going to hurt her. However, they might hurt him, so he ran like she'd told him to. He felt miserable about it. He weighed his options for how to get her out of Giles's house without getting dusted and wasn't coming up with ideas he liked very much. In fact, he had only come up with one idea that sounded like it would remotely work, so he was in LA to get reinforcements. Or actually reinforcement – singular. If the slayer was going to listen to anyone, that anyone was Angel.<p>

He didn't really like this plan, being how he and Angel weren't exactly friends, but they were family, and that was how he was going to appeal to the giant poof. And he was going to refrain from calling him poof while asking as well. He thought it might go a long way toward convincing Angel to help him out. He knew that this was a long shot, but it was his best option.

The office wasn't hard to find – he just needed to get in and talk to the git that lived there. Figuring, logically, that breaking into the place wasn't the best way to win Angel over, he decided to knock on the door, the one in the underground garage. Maybe he should have called instead. The last time Angel had seen him was when he had kidnapped Willow and Xander and left them at the factory. Not a memory he wanted Angel to be thinking about right now. In fact, Spike wasn't sure if there were any memories of him that he would want Angel to think about right now.

Too late. Angel was coming to the door – Spike could hear him.

The look of surprise that crossed Angel's face when he opened the door was monumental but brief. And then Angel was punching him. He definitely should have called. Spike blocked the last punch and the following kick, trying to talk at the same time.

"It's not like that!" he said as Angel tried to sweep his legs out from under him. "I'm..." dodge a punch, "on..." block a kick, "a..." avoid a headbutt, "rescue..." grab hand before it smashed into his face, "mission."

That stopped the onslaught of the assault. "Who are you rescuing?"

"Willow."

"Who has her?" Angel asked with suspicion lacing his tone.

"Well, her friends have her, but they aren't letting her go and they aren't being very reasonable," Spike explained quickly.

"You have five minutes to explain yourself," Angel said through gritted teeth.

"It all started months ago. I came back to Sunnyhell and got caught by these government commandos who put a chip in my head that made it so I can't hurt people anymore. After that, I went to the slayer and her goody-goodies for some help. To make a long story short, I've been helping out, and in there somewhere Willow and I started seeing each other. We were keeping it quiet on account we didn't think her friends would understand and both of us liked me being something other than dust. The problem is earlier tonight her little friends found out, and they took her. I ran, but only because she told me to. So now I'm here, hoping that since we're family you'll help me get Willow back." Spike drew an unneeded breath. "Is that summed up enough for you?"

The look on Angel's face was something Spike wanted a picture of. He looked completely confused.

"You might need to explain how you and the girl you kidnapped and terrorized last year are now dating," Angel said with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I'll be happy to, but can we do it in the car? I want to free her before the sun comes up." Spike gestured for the garage and his car with the blacked out windows.

Angel shook his head and for a moment Spike thought he was saying no, but then Angel said, "Let me get my coat. The story will be worth the trip. But I'm not saying that I'm going to help you."

It was at least a step in the right direction, so Spike was willing to take what he could get. He would just have to work some of his own kind of magic on the car ride back to Sunnydale.

Once they were on the road, he told Angel about how Oz had left Willow. He laid it on thick about how the wolf had broken her heart and how he'd been there to comfort her through it while her friends had barely acknowledged her pain. He just didn't give the details about how it had entailed a lot of alcohol and half the positions in the Kama Sutra. For as much as Spike was a braggart, he knew that this was not the time. Besides, he didn't think Willow would appreciate it very much either, so that kept his mouth completely shut on the subject.

"And you would know all about heartbreak because of Drusilla," Angel finished for him.

"Well, yeah." He also decided to tell Angel about the spell that Willow had cast.

Another night, another demon to hunt down and kill. And once more he was teamed up with Willow. This was getting to be typical since everyone else couldn't stand him and she always volunteered.

One minute they were walking through Restfield cemetery and everything seemed quiet, and the next, Willow was being run through with a sword. The demon disappeared before Spike could react, and Willow was in his arms bleeding to death.

He put his hands on her stomach to try and stop the blood from flowing, but it was pouring through his fingers. She was breathing heavily and her eyes were wide. "Spike?"

"Don't talk," he said. "Save your strength. You're going to be fine. I've seen worse," he lied. There was blood pooling on his thigh from where the sword had exited out her back. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't even turn her, because the chip prevented him from biting her. He was completely helpless.

"Don't leave me," she whimpered.

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. Love you, yeah? They'd have to dust me to get me away." He could see her skin getting even paler while her lips were turning blue.

She tried to smile but only succeeded in coughing. "Love you t –."

And then she was dead and he was crying the most painful tears he had ever known. For about thirty seconds.

When she gasped for breath, he was in shock. How was she alive? He listened closely and he heard a heart beat. She was breathing and alive, but she was passed out cold. He tried calling her name and shaking her, but she didn't wake up. He pulled her close and held on in awe for a moment. He just basked in the fact that she wasn't dead. Then he started to think about the possible reasons why she wasn't dead. It didn't take long for him to come up with something.

About a week before now, she had done a spell that was supposed to make Buffy absolutely unkillable, but it didn't seem to have worked. If it had worked, simple paper cuts would have only lasted for seconds before healing. That was what Willow had told him. But then Buffy had gotten cut by a dagger when she was fighting some demon or other and it had only seemed to be healing as fast as it normally did for a slayer. The spell must have backfired and made Willow unkillable. He was more than relieved. He was joyous that her spell had gone wrong like that.

"So after that we looked up the spell and did a lot of research on the German involved with the spell. And as it turns out, she isn't just unkillable, she's immortal now," Spike said to finish up his story. "The thing is, she hasn't told her friends. She's so afraid that they'll look at her like a freak now that she hasn't wanted to say anything. But I don't think we can keep it secret any longer. They are going to have to know."

Angel looked like he was having a hard time digesting all this information. "She's immortal?"

"Yep."

"And can't be killed?"

"Uh huh."

"And you love her?"

"I do."

"And she for some unfathomable reason loves you?"

"She does."

Spike let all that sit with Angel while he drove.

* * *

><p>When the bathroom door opened, Willow was half asleep in the empty bathtub, but the door opening was enough to fully wake her up. Standing in the doorway was Giles.<p>

"We'd like to talk to you for a few minutes. Would you care to come out of there?" he asked.

Willow rolled her eyes. "Let me just get out of the tub and hope I still have feeling in my legs. I can't believe you kept Spike, who was completely helpless, chained up in this thing for so long."

Giles nodded at her and took off his glasses. "I don't remember you complaining about it at the time."

"I don't think I realized how uncomfortable this tub was then." It was a weak defense and she knew it, but that had occurred before she'd gotten to know Spike. She felt bad about it in retrospect. She climbed out of the tub with creaking joints protesting having been put in the position they had been in the first place.

She followed Giles out to the living room and got a look at the firing squad. Buffy, Xander, and Anya were all sitting there looking solemn. Giles motioned to an empty recliner. "Please, have a seat Willow."

She took a seat and decided to wait and see what they had to say before saying anything herself.

Buffy stood up and clasped her hands together. "We've talked this out and we all think that there is no way that this isn't a spell of some kind. Especially since you won't let us do a general reversal spell. But we want to hear your side before we go ahead with the reversal spell. We have the ingredients and a spell that Giles and Anya agree is really powerful. But Xander didn't want to do the spell because you seemed so frightened by the mere mention of this kind of spell being done on you. So please, tell us why we shouldn't do the spell?"

"It's not a love spell I'm worried about reversing," Willow said in a pleading voice. "There's another spell on me and I'm not sure what will happen if you reverse it. Worst case scenario... I could die. Hence all the fear about a reversal spell."

"What do you mean you could die?" Xander asked, looking really worried. "Did one of your spells go wrong?"

"Actually, yes, a spell of mine did go wrong, but I'm really lucky it did. If it didn't, I wouldn't be here right now. Look, it's a really long story and I would rather not tell it. I don't want you guys to look at me like I'm a freak." She was specifically thinking of Xander with that. Buffy had dated a vampire, and Anya was over a thousand, and Giles had always been pretty level-headed. Xander, however, didn't really like people who lived forever, and she couldn't handle him hating her.

Just then there was a banging on the door and she really hoped it wasn't who she thought it was. That banging sounded like Spike. She wasn't exactly sure what about it made it sound like him, but it sounded exactly like the kind of banging she imagined he'd do.

So when Giles went to the door, she followed him.

"Who's there?" Giles asked through the door.

"Angel," came the familiar voice on the other side. Angel didn't sound happy.

Giles opened the door and on the other side was indeed Angel, but Spike was with him.

"You shouldn't be here. It isn't safe," she warned him. And out of the corner of her eye she saw Buffy getting a stake.

Angel walked into the apartment with an air of authority. "Buffy put that away."

Buffy gawked. "But he has her under some kind of spell or something. When he's dust it'll all be over."

"Let me ask you something, Buffy. Has Willow been acting irrational or dangerous?" Angel asked.

Spike entered the apartment, but he was in a position to easily run out if need be. Willow wanted to go to him, but Giles was directly in her way.

"She thinks she's in love with Spike – that sounds pretty irrational to me," Buffy said.

"Has she been hysterical or unreasonable?" Angel reworded.

"There was that bit about the reversal spell. She kind of freaked out about us doing that," Xander said from his position in the living room.

"That's because if you do that she could die. Anything else?"

"Not really, no," Buffy said.

"How do you know she could die?" Anya asked.

"Spike told me about the spell she did. I wouldn't want to try a reversal spell on her either." Angel's posture relaxed a little and he took another step into the apartment.

"What is this spell that backfired?" Giles asked.

"It was a spell that rendered her immortal and unkillable," Angel said, and Willow's heart sank.

"Well, then a reversal spell would just make her mortal again," Giles hypothesized.

That was when Spike spoke up. "But she's already been run through and died once. A reversal spell could kill her."

"Run through?" Buffy questioned. "Willow you were run through and you didn't tell me?"

Willow shrugged rather than answer that question. She didn't really want to see the look on Buffy's face right now. The one that said "freak" clear as day. She peeked at Xander, and he was just looking kind of shocked and at a loss for words. The word "freak" would appear on his face too. It just needed time.

Angel gave her an apologetic look and then looked at the rest of the group in turn. "I really think this has been hard enough on Willow. You should really let her go now."

"But what about the love spell?" Buffy asked.

"There isn't one," Angel said. "If Willow were under the effects of a love spell, then she would have been fighting tooth and nail to get at Spike just now and she hasn't been. For as weird as it is, they are simply just together and seem to love each other. We have no business judging that or trying to keep them apart."

Willow didn't wait for anyone else's response. She went up to Angel and hugged him. "I'm going to find a way to decurse your curse so that you can be completely happy one day without fear."

He hugged her back. "I'm sure you'll figure it out too."

No one else was saying anything. She was afraid to look at anyone for fear that the peace would shatter and things would turn chaotic. She walked over to Spike and no one stopped her. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her soundly. "Next time I have to rescue you, make it be from something I can fight, please."

She smiled at him. "Promise."

Xander was the one to speak. "Can you guys keep sneaking around like we don't know? I don't want to have to look at that."

Willow laughed. That was as close to acceptance as she expected to get from Xander. Soon the others were laughing too and the mood was a lot lighter. Perhaps it was all going to work out okay. She hoped that it was all going to work out much better than she'd thought it would.

Now all she had to do was find Spike somewhere to stay that had plumbing, and her life would be so much better.  
>End.<p> 


End file.
